Apr 2013 Prez Sez

If you want to find out what our lawmakers are doing in Tallahassee
I urge you to join the Florida Audubon Conservation Network and sign up
for email alerts. Another great source of info is the
Florida Conservation Coalition. Some of the bills they are
proposing are really over the top. For example, one bill would not
allow buying more conservation lands without selling off an equal
amount of currently-owned lands first. Another would let owners
of property adjacent to state lands to basically take over the public
lands. We all need to get on this.

update on tiger bay

As you may recall from last month's PrezSez, the proposal was made
by off-roading enthusiasts to ask the County Council to support their
request for the State to dedicate a part of Tiger Bay State Forest
exclusively to off-roading. We were opposed and supported by
other environmental groups as well as the State Forestry Service.
The proposal was heard at the County Council meeting on March 21 and
the vote was 5-2 against the council supporting the plan. The
rationale was not so much the environmental consequences to the fragile
lands but the thought that the County Council had no real business
telling the State of Florida what to do with their lands.

update on the Spaceex at county council

Frank DiBiello, Space Florida President and CEO, placed a short
notice item on the agenda of the Volusia County Council on 4 April 2013
to brief the council and get their support for a proposal to get NASA
to give them 150 acres of land in the area of Shiloh at the
intersection of US 1 and SR 3 in Oak Hill, Fl. They want a
facility for the Spacex commercial launch project. Although the
project already has a site in the Canaveral Air Force Station, the
Space Florida folks want an area that is free from the security
restrictions of the NASA and the Canaveral AFS.

I put a copy of the DiBiello powerpoint presentation on my
website. You can access it here. It can be downloaded to
your computer. http://media.sevolusiaaudubon.org/spaceport/ . It
is 7.7 Mb so you need a fast connection.

Problems with this proposal include the environmental sensitivity of
the lands involved, potential destruction of wetlands and wetland
buffers in the area, the lack of specificity for the exact area to be
requested, and the potential loss of access to MINWR for legitimate
users ( fishermen, hunters, birders, etc.) during the pre-launch and
launch windows. In addition, there is the danger to Oak Hill
residents and other environmentally-sensitive lands should a high
altitude catastrophe occur.

The environmental community in Volusia County, supported by Florida
Audubon, is adamantly opposed to the proposal for the above
reasons. In addition, 150 acres requested seems a small area for
a spaceport. We are concerned that it may be only a foot in the
door which could be expanded if the proposal is accepted by the county
and state and later NASA and MINWR. We know the state of Florida
supports it because the governor's office sent the first request to
NASA last fall.

The United Waterfowlers-Florida also opposes the proposal.
Here is their position
paper .

The Council did not vote on the proposal, but did agree to take
this up in the near future and consider passing a resolution of support
for the Space Florida project.

Florida Land and Water Legacy program

The program has surpassed the 10% of the signatures needed for
putting the measure on the ballot for constitutional amendment.
This milestone means that now the state Supreme Court will validate the
constitutionality of the language and clear the initiative for
continuing.